GRASSROOTS UNCONVINCED BY POTENTIAL FF-FG DEAL

NOT MUCH LOCAL SUPPORT FOR POSSIBILITY OF HISTORIC COALITION

There is little or no welcome among public representatives in County Wexford for a coalition between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens, as the three parties prepare to enter talks on a possible Programme for Government.

Attitudes range from resigned acceptance at best to downright opposition, with some suggesting a national unity government instead, and many expressing strong fears about the Greens’ insistence on a 7% yearly reduction in carbon emissions, and its effect on rural economies.

The prospect of an end to the historic stand-off between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, was less of a concern to most local councillors in a survey this week, with one Fianna Failer suggesting the opposition to coalition is not about Civil War politics, but policies and core values.

The General Election of February 8 seems a distant memory now and, as many of our surveyed councillors pointed out, Ireland is a very different country to the one in which the electorate voted and decided to grant 38 seats to Fianna Fail, 37 to Sinn Fein, 25 for Fine Gael and 12 to the Green party.

All has been changed utterly by the unforeseen experience of the Covid-19 global pandemic and the wide-ranging economic and health challenges it has brought not just in the immediate term but well into the future.

That is the reason many local public representatives, however lukewarm their attitude to the ‘marriage of convenience’, accept there is a need to be realistic, to create a stable government to lead the country out of crisis and into recovery.

One Fine Gael councillor said his party and Fianna Fail work together all the time locally for the good of the county and they should be able to do the same in the national interest.

The urgency to form a government has become more acute now that a roadmap for easing Covid-19 restrictions has been published and the country begins the slow process of returning to work.

But there seems to be little appetite among the grassroots for a three-way between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens.

On one key issue, some FF and FG councillors appear to agree - resistance to the Green Party’s demand for a 7% carbon reduction at a time of impending economic difficulty.

One Fianna Fail councillor confessed that the idea of a Green Party Environment Minister ‘worries me’ while a colleague said he would be opposed to any government involving the Greens.

Some councillors have suggested the formation of a national unity government (usually formed at a time or war or national emergency), drawn from all parties elected to the Dáil, as the only alternative option, since another General Election is regarded as an impossibility in the current crisis.

One Fianna Fail councillor who is ‘dead against’ a FF/FG wedding, said Sinn Fein deserves a place in Government as all three parties secured approximately the same number of seats. Adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach, few councillors are prepared to bet large on the prospect of the negotiations ending in success, with one saying: ‘I have great doubts that all of the three parties will approve it’.